1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to printing apparatuses and printing methods.
2. Related Art
As a so-called inkjet printing apparatus, which performs printing by ejecting ink from a head, there are a printer, a plotter, or a facsimile, for example. Among printing apparatuses of this kind, there are printing apparatuses that control operations of elements provided in a head by drive signals and that eject ink; wherein an amount of the ink is different depending on a dot tone level that is based on a size of a to-be-formed dot (see JP-A-10-193587, for example). The above-mentioned apparatuses perform such control using four dot tone levels that consist of non-formation of a dot, a small dot, a medium dot, and a large dot. Therefore, four types of drive signals generated for each dot tone level are applied to the elements selectively.
Among the above-mentioned printing apparatuses, there are printing apparatuses that perform printing of multi-level darkness/lightness of a certain color with a dark ink and a light ink of the color. In such printing apparatuses, a common drive signal is used regardless of type of ink. In this case, if a drive signal is set to a same drive signal for each tone level and the dark ink and the light ink of the certain color are ejected, there are cases in which graininess deteriorates. It is considered that this is caused by the fact that ejected amounts of the dark ink and the light ink become the same for each tone level.